


I hold a sword to guide me

by sheswanderlust



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Angst, Charles-centric, Panic Attack, Singapore GP, don't expect to find anything more than introspection here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:07:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23175181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheswanderlust/pseuds/sheswanderlust
Summary: Stand up.Smile.Don’t crack.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	I hold a sword to guide me

**Author's Note:**

> So, this thingy has been sitting in my drafts since Singapore, then with this lockdown I've finally found enough boredom and frustration to finish writing it. I... don't really know what it is, just my favourite mix of introspection and a ride in Charles' mind, so don't expect much. Sorry for the mistakes, English is not my first language and concentration is not my current mood. As usual, thanks to **honeybutter**. <3  
> The title is taken from Aurora's _Warrior_.  
> I hope someone will like this!
> 
> Disclaimer: as usual I don't know anything or anyone and this is just fantasy.

Charles had always known that he was different from the others. It wasn’t vanity, it wasn’t overconfidence, it was just a fact. He wanted everything, and that’s what had always made him different.

That _wanting everything_ , that burning gasoline racing in his veins, felt particularly heavy that evening, under the too bright lights of the press conference room, his head light from the strain of the race, eyes trying to follow the microphone as it was passed from one journalist to the other. Questions, again and again.

He tried to check the time on his watch without being obvious. For a while he let his eyes follow the seconds’ hand, trying to adjust his pulse to that regular rhythm, yet his chest still felt tight. He repeated to himself that it was just a feeling, that there was plenty of air around him and that he wasn’t going to die.

Somehow, knowing it was only his mind made him feel even worse.

He felt Sebastian’s eyes on him as he rushed to answer the question, the face of the journalist blurred in the audience. Measured cautious mature words flowed from his lips as he tiptoed around the elephant in the room. He tried to ignore the stare of his teammate, the joy irradiating from him, the disgust and guilt he felt in knowing that yeah, he was happy for him, _and yet he was not._

He wanted everything, so how could he?

He exhaled a long breath, earning another side look from Sebastian. He still heard those words on the team radio, rushed by avid lips in the heat of the moment. He had felt a weird kind of nakedness right after having pronounced them. _I want everything._ Because in the end they were all he was. And hearing himself saying it, revealing his most pure and striving essence, with all the demons and doubts and fault and dreams and secrets it implied, felt utterly revealing. And scary.

_You should have shut the fuck up, Charles._

He was the first to stand up when the end of the conference was announced. He immediately regained control, the rational need not to look like he couldn’t wait to get out of there, too self-absorbed in his megalomaniac dreams to take his time and share the spotlight with his teammate. To take his time and cheer for the second place he himself had earned. So he waited and then got out of the room, his steps calm and calculated and staged, hiding the boiling turmoil in his head. He smiled at Sebastian, he smiled at Max. He wondered for a second if the Dutch driver could understand the depth of his ambition. Maybe to a degree, not completely though.

His mind kept revising every turn of the race as he dribbled through the unusual amount of people that still were in the paddock, smiling at every compliment he got, every pat on his back. His legs led him along the road until he reached Ferrari’s motorhome. He didn’t go in and went past the bright red building. He needed space, peace, silence.

He hoped not to meet Mattia. They had talked, the team principal strong and yet understanding in his explanation, trying to calm the anger of his driver in the fatherly manner he had with him and only him. Charles hated the way that reassuring and warm approach would make his throat close up and his eyes get watery all of a sudden, even in the midst of a scolding or a heated argument. He hated being emotional, and when it happened he felt legit scared, the panicking need to escape the situation as soon as possible.

He frustratingly wondered why there were still so many people at the track. It seemed that packing was taking longer than it usually did. His own heartbeat was louder and louder in his ears. He felt isolated from the surroundings and at the same time too close to everyone who brushed past him, the terrifying feeling that people could hear his irregular breathing, could see that there was something wrong with him.

_Smile and be unperturbed, Charles. Cracks are not for others to see._

He kept walking.

Carlos and Lando waved at him and he waved back, grateful that they were too busy being their usual giggly mess to start talking to him. He often felt uneasy around Lando, his carefree bubbly naïve attitude so different from his own. He never felt like that, probably never had.

_People are gonna give you hell for this stunt. And they are right. Putain, Charles._

He played in his mind all the words that had slipped out of his lips during the race, feeling again the way sudden and burning rage had filled his helmet, brain going blank for long seconds. He had needed some deep breaths to regain his usual focus, damning the way his mind would fail him. His hands had kept clenching the wheel tightly for the rest of the race. In that moment, his legs leading him along the road, eyes avoiding meeting with the people who walked past him, he felt again the mad rush in his veins. The heat felt sickening around his throat and for a moment he thought he would throw up. He panicked at the thought of losing control _again_ and quickly found his way between two prefabricated buildings.

He walked until he reached a secluded spot and leaned against the wall, closing his eyes, fighting the nausea coming up. His lungs felt even heavier in the relative calm that surrounded him. He slowly sat on the ground, hating the exhaustion in his body, hating that humid weather, hating the way his mind couldn’t accept anything that wasn’t a win.

_You want everything and this is not everything, right?_

He felt the burning, self-destructive need to kill that voice, the part of him that wouldn’t let him breathe, the part of him that would never shut up, always wanting more, demanding more, to himself and to everyone else. More support, more faith, more praise, more worship.

_Never ask for it, though. Don’t be a burden._

He had never understood people who felt genuinely happy for someone else’s victory, even when the one winning was a friend. When someone else wins, it means that you lose, and what’s this if not an unacceptable bargain? He still remembered Pierre’s proud eyes as he hugged him in Monza, chants in their ears, a red sea swarming the straight. For a split second, the whirlwind in his mind slowing down in the space of a heartbeat, Charles had wondered if he would have felt the same for him, had their roles been reversed. He already knew the answer.

He wondered if being like this made him a bad person. He wondered if it was even possible to make it to the top _without being like this_. 

He had no one to ask.

He could still visualise the pole position lap in his mind, walls so close that he could almost feel them brushing against the sides of the car as he raced on the thin and slippery line between holding control in your hands and losing it completely. It had been a raw adrenaline rush, leaving him still transfixed at night when he had tried to fall asleep, his mind tracing the circuit corners on the ceiling of his hotel room.

It had felt magical like never before.

And now, eyes closed and head against the wall behind him, it felt like the race had been an unnervingly underwhelming epilogue.

_It’s not about Sebastian, it’s about you falling short._

Out of the blue, he remembered another time he had sat on the ground, gasping rage hidden behind a random building in the paddock. He remembered the white overall of his last team in karting; the smell of rain still soaking the ground; the knot in his stomach as he bit his lower lip, his mind replaying Jules’ words in an endless loop. _It’s not useful to take it this badly every time you don’t win, Charlot_. He remembered the feeling of humiliation at the well-meaning comment, his own _yeah_ while he excused himself and ran to hide somewhere and lick his wounds.

Back to Singapore, and he suddenly felt that maybe after all he had never changed.

It was hard to describe the maddening feeling he experienced every time he would say a word more than intended. He felt like his own thoughts were scattered somewhere on track, barely controlled words and bitterly aggressive tone, a spillover of his brain letting too much to be seen.

He didn’t like it. Never had. Control is paramount in life, even more when your life revolves around metal bullets speeding at 300 km/h on a tarmac track, a life-threatening thrill that, somehow ironically, kept him alive.

_You’re not gonna die, it’s gonna end soon. It’s only your mind._

Something heavy pushing his chest and not letting him inhale.

He felt like punching, except there was nothing to punch.

He felt like screaming, knowing well that he would never do it.

His knuckles were white as his picture-perfect immaculate façade as he dug his nails into his palms, resisting the urge to chew them as he would always do.

_Stop being such an idiot, Charles._

It finished as it had started, a deep breath and fog dissolving into his mind, lights bright against the Singapore night sky, his mad heartrate now only digital data registered in the fitbit watch on his wrist.

It finished like it always did, leaving a trace of exhausted loneliness behind, the same one he would feel hugging Pierre’s father or waving at Daniel’s mother.

_Just keep it at bay. As usual._

It took some seconds before he realised his phone was buzzing in his pocket. He took it out, Mattia’s name flashing on the screen.

Silence around him for a few seconds more, sadness lingering in the heavy air.

He took the call, the mild Italian voice keeping him on the ground.

«Yeah, I’m fine. I’m coming», he answered, his voice croaked by the lump he still felt in his throat.

_Stand up._

_Smile._

_Don’t crack._

He stood up.

__


End file.
